Midgets and Mooncalves
by Luan Mao
Summary: All the cool kids are putting up fragments of stories. I'm cool - my mommy told me so - so I'm doing it, too!
1. Hazing

What we have here is a failure to communicate. No, that's not right. We're communicating right now, if only one-way. What we have here are pieces of stories, ideas that don't really stand by themselves or which are really short or which I just didn't feel like cleaning up enough to post. Free to a good home and all that.

Disclaimer: As a general thing, I don't own the characters and universes described here. These are fanfiction fragments, after all. If I ever get off my lazy butt and finish my partially-written novellas, I'll make sure to write a couple of fanfics on them, just so I can say I _do_ own the characters. That's for the future, though.

**Hazing**

Universe: St Trinian's (2007 movie)

Rating: T, for nudity and implied violence

...ooo000ooo...

Her first look at St. Trinian's had impressed her. The enormous building loomed in the distance, sat in the middle of hundreds of acres of grounds.

First impressions didn't last. From the severely damaged front lawn to the non-uniform, slatternly uniforms on the students, St. Trinian's appeared to be the bottom rung of the boarding school ladder.

She sat and grieved outside the headmistress's office as her father took time from his busy, busy schedule to finalize arrangements for her schooling. Things were still in disarray after her mother's sudden death barely a week ago. Daddy Dearest, of course, was much too busy and too important to raise her himself, so it was off to school with her. The best she could hope for would still be a huge change from the way she lived and gone to school until now.

St. Trinian's hardly seemed to be the best she could hope for.

The students – sluts or hoodlums, the lot of them – were worse than the school grounds. Hardly any spoke even a single word to her, but they all stared at her. Sized her up. Looked a little too long at the bags which held everything she owned. It set her nerves on edge. She took a moment to check her possessions again. This seemed the sort of place which would have a lot of thieves.

Daddy Dearest finally emerged from the headmistress's office, laughing more than she thought he should, considering his wife of seventeen years was barely in the ground.

And then, with barely more than an exhortation to do the family proud, he was gone and the headmistress was handing her off to some other teacher, a young woman with glazed eyes and who smelled of something aromatic and sweet.

The stoner teacher led her up to the dorm where she'd be staying, then wandered off with no more than a vague wave toward a bed with no linens. Fortunately, or not, the Head Girl led the older girls up in what turned out to be an introduction and hazing session. The hazing wasn't as bad as television had led her to expect, so she dealt with it.

Late in the evening she finally made it to the upper-year showers, to wash off the sweat and the insults which had been written on her face.

When she got out of the water, her towel was gone. Of course. Her view of the school as being filled with thieves and thugs had been right on.

When she saw that her clothes were missing, too, she rolled her eyes. It appeared that the charming young ladies of St Trinian's hadn't finished hazing her. She headed up to the dorm room, not worrying about her wetness or trying to cover her nudity. There were no men in the school at night, she had no reason to be ashamed of her body, and the bitches in the school obviously wanted to make her act like a screaming fool.

When she saw the video camera following her as she walked, she saw red. They'd gone too far.

Finding a push-broom in a cleaning closet, she removed the handle and then snapped it in two. Daddy Dearest had been distantly proud of his athletic daughter, paying for lessons and team memberships without paying attention to the details. He probably didn't even know what eskrima was.

If they were testing her, they were about to learn what she could do.

And if this dump was law of the jungle, dog eat dog, she was going to be the nastiest bitch in the pack.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Annabelle's reaction to the towel theft near the beginning of the 2007 movie was _pathetic_.


	2. Newlyweds

**Newlyweds**

Universe: Harry Potter, 4th year

Rating: T

...ooo000ooo...

Gabrielle was crying.

She'd been crying for an hour, since the door had shut behind them.

Harry couldn't blame her. She was scared. She was separated from her family for the first time in her life. She didn't know what was going to happen to her.

Harry couldn't hug her and tell her it would be OK. She was terrified of him. Harry didn't blame her. To be honest, he was a little scared of her, or at least the situation they were in.

He wasn't any happier about their "marriage" than she was. A forced marriage – to an eight-year-old! – had been the last thing on his mind when he walked out to the lake that morning.

He couldn't go over and hug her, but at least he was able to talk to her. Dumbledore might have been a useless bastard all year, but he'd cast a translation spell on Harry this afternoon, after the Delacour parents had been yelling at them both for ten minutes. It was temporary, but Dumbledore had said it would last long enough for the newlyweds to get to know each other. The way things were going, that meant about five years.

"We can make it better, Gabrielle. We can figure out a way to get you back with your family and you not die."

"I want my mother!" She burst into renewed tears.

He'd been trying to console her for a while, once he'd realized she wasn't going to stop crying. He'd run out of things to say. He never was the best at talking to people, and this was too much for him.

Harry was at his wits' end. He didn't want to spend the night with a crying little girl. He didn't want to spend the night alone with a little girl even if she wasn't crying. And he most especially didn't want to be married to a little girl, crying or not.

And why had the adults left them alone, even if it was their "wedding night"? He could believe it of the Hogwarts staff; they had an unbroken record of not seeing, not caring, not bestirring themselves. But what about Gabrielle's parents? They couldn't be happy about their eight-year-old daughter spending a night with a teenage boy.

Didn't there used to be a custom with arranged marriages, a chaperone sitting in on a child bride's wedding night? Why weren't they doing that now? Why weren't her parents insisting on it?

Gabrielle was still crying. Harry couldn't take it any more.

"I'll try to get your mother to come here, Gabrielle. Just wait, or try to go to sleep."

There was no answer, except maybe a momentary reduction in the volume of the sobs.

Escaping "their" room through the only exit, Harry immediately saw Gabrielle's sister, who paused in her pacing and turned a furious glare on him.

"Oh, good! I was wondering how I'd find your mother but you're good enough." Harry was so relieved to see her that he didn't wonder at Fleur being awake and here despite the hour. And didn't notice her outraged look at being referred to as _good enough_. "Come in. Gabrielle's been crying and I can't get her to stop."

"What did you do to her, you animal?" Fleur growled.

"Nothing! I never touched her." Wasted words. She had already brushed past him to rush to her little sister.

Even with the translation spell, Harry couldn't make out the murmuring of the two sisters. He just flopped himself into one of the room's two chairs and tried to relax enough to sleep.

No such luck. Fleur tucked Gabrielle's covers around her before standing up from the bed and then sitting in the other chair.

"She exhausted herself crying but did confirm that you did not force yourself upon her. Perhaps I was hasty in accusing you."

It wasn't an apology. Despite being in a bedroom – a _marriage_ bedroom with a very beautiful young woman, Harry wasn't at all interested. Her arrogance and mood swings were not at all attractive. It couldn't just be a beautiful woman thing because Parvati wasn't at all arrogant. Maybe that was how the Delacours had raised their girls, or maybe all part-veela were like that. If that was true, Harry didn't want to have anything to do with either of them.

Except he had to. He was married to Gabrielle.

Sighing, Harry asked in French, "Would you mind staying here the rest of the night? Even if she doesn't wake up during the night, she'll still wake up in the morning, and probably start crying if it's just her and me here. You can have the bed with her. I'll sleep on this chair."

"Yes, of course I will keep my sister safe and secure. Good night … brother in law."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Yah, I went with the idiotic veela-life-debt-forced-marriage trope, but only to point out a way to take care of one potential problem. Of course the Potterverse magic-raised people wouldn't think of such an obvious solution, but that's because their IQs are somewhere in the low double digits. In the real world, in some cultures child marriages for political reasons had chaperones in the room to make sure the groom didn't force himself on a prepubescent bride. Byzantines: 1. Fanfic authors: 0.

The reason I wrote this was because I just read a one-shot in which the weeping veela child bride trope was used, and used badly. Don't ask; I've repressed the name of the story and I won't embarrass the author or the person who put that bit of rubbish in his favorites.


	3. Cock-blocker

**Cock-blocker**

Universe: Harry Potter, upper school years

Rating: T

...ooo000ooo...

Hermione was sitting with Harry in the Great Hall when a rather scrawny underclassman approached them.

"Um, here, um, this is for you," the young wizard said. He appeared nervous, possibly because he was maybe a Third Year talking for the first time to Hogwarts's most well-known student.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"It's a note. From my sister. Um, see you around." And the young man was gone.

"You'd better let me take a look before you open it, Harry," Hermione suggested. "I'm better with detection charms, and you can't be too careful."

No sooner had she cast the first charm when the note burst into flame. Luckily, the Hogwarts tables had taken much worse than a burning piece of parchment, so this new scorch mark was lost amongst the older damage.

"Well! I guess we have our answer." To be honest, she wasn't quite certain she'd done that spell _quite_ right. However, considering the number of people who were trying to get Harry, the most likely explanation was that the note had been trapped somehow.

"Thanks, Hermione. I don't know what I'd do without you."

...ooo000ooo...

Hermione had just spent the afternoon goofing off with Harry. It had been a spontaneous thing. Lavender had made a remark about Hermione not picking her nose unless it had been scheduled two weeks in advance. Hermione had sniffed – as if she picked her nose at all! – but the crack had cut close enough that she just had to do something unscheduled _right now_.

She'd dragged Harry away from heading off to the unused classroom that a number of students used for just hanging out. She didn't feel guilty about changing his plans on no notice. He hadn't ever gone to that room on any of the previous weekends and was going this time only because Seamus and Dean had specifically invited him, so it wasn't like he was about to miss a regular part of his social life.

Besides, she sniffed, most of the students went there only for hooking up and making out. Harry didn't have a girlfriend and would no doubt be embarrassed at watching other students leave in pairs or even make out in front of others. He really was quite naive, for a young man in his middle teens. Probably Hermione, his best friend now that Ron was spending all of his time chatting up girls, should help him overcome that.

...ooo000ooo...

"Excuse us, you're Hermione Granger, right?"

Hermione turned to the pair of young girls. Hufflepuffs, probably around second year. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Yes, we were hoping you could advise us on courses for next year. They said you're a Muggleborn, so you'd know best if Muggle Studies is worth taking."

"Could we maybe go to the library so we can talk about it?"

"No, there's no need to go that far. If you're looking to learn about muggles, don't bother with the Muggle Studies class. It's nothing but a waste of time. If you need the OWL in order to get a job with the ministry, then take it but talk to Muggleborn students to learn the real information."

"But… can't we talk some more about it?" the first girl asked rather urgently as Hermione resumed walking toward where Harry was no doubt goofing around rather than working.

"No, I've told you the most important bit and I have something else to be doing. You can talk to any other Muggleborn, I'm sure."

...ooo000ooo...

Hermione was again sitting with Harry, this time in the library. There was nothing unusual about that. Left to himself, he'd dawdle and procrastinate on his homework, then rush it and do a terrible job.

Honestly! Hermione had to put so much effort into keeping Harry on track. He'd fail for sure if she didn't keep him from frittering away his time on frivolous activities.

"Excuse me." A young voice interrupted their essay writing.

"Yes?" Hermione responded. "Did you need Harry or me?"

"Uh, Harry. Uh, Mr Potter."

Hermione stared at the young wizard while he and Harry exchanged words. The boy looked familiar.

"So, um, could you come with me and talk to her? She's waiting in one of the classrooms just down the hall. It's not far."

"Wait a moment, Harry," Hermione requested as he was about to stand up and walk off. Addressing the younger student, she demanded, "Aren't you the one who gave Harry a trapped note a week ago? I didn't report you to the professors, but that doesn't mean I'm going to trust you not to trick him again."

"What? No, I never—"

"Just be off with you, or I'll bring a professor in."

As the stranger scurried off, plot obviously defeated, Harry said, "Thanks again, Hermione. I'd get in trouble without you for sure."

...ooo000ooo...

"All right, Granger, what's it going to take?"

Hermione blinked as she looked up at her two classmates standing over her in the library. "Excuse me?"

"You've been keeping every other girl away from Harry Potter. Maybe you're not interested in dating him—"

"Or anyone!"

"—but did it ever occur to you that maybe someone else was interested in him?"

"Like us!"

"Right! So what do we have to do to get you to let us talk to him?"

"Wait, you're interested in Harry? Interested-interested? Why? Never mind; that's none of my business. Why don't you talk to him and see if he's interested? And what do you mean, I've been keeping you away from him?"

"Don't play innocent, Granger. Once or twice might have been coincidence, but I've been trying to get a date _all year_! And you've blocked me every time."

"And me, too. There's a saying I read somewhere: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Are you setting yourself up as our enemy?"

"Not just us. A couple other girls tried, too, after we started complaining about you. You blocked them all."

"We tried talking to Harry. We tried sending notes to Harry. We sent my brother to ask Harry to meet me. We tried distracting you so someone could talk to Harry. We even tried ambushing you! And you smashed right through everything and pretended you never noticed anything!"

Hermione was flabbergasted they would accuse her of such a thing. "No! I haven't! I haven't done anything. I never even noticed anyone trying to ask Harry out!"

"Yah, right. So, like we said to start with, what's it going to take, Granger? You've set yourself up as, as his chatelaine—"

"His appointments secretary!"

"—and we have to go through you to talk to him. So what do you want?"

Hermione leaned back and gazed at the others through half-lowered eyelids for a few moments as she considered what to tell them. "It's none of my business whom Harry dates, other than my concern about him as his friend. It's not my place to vet prospective girlfriends. That said, anyone making him unhappy will have to deal with me. And, because Harry is a student first and foremost, of course he must place his studies first, and dating and other entertainment second."

The other two girls didn't seem happy with that answer, but tough. She'd set out her position clearly and concisely. Hermione took her responsibilities as Harry's friend very seriously.


End file.
